What actually makes up your business electricity bill
A business electricity bill has two commodity lines, a unit rate (pence per kWh) and a daily standing charge, sitting on top of a stack of non-commodity costs: distribution (DUoS), transmission (TNUoS), BSUoS, the Climate Change Levy (CCL), Renewables Obligation, FiT, Capacity Market and supplier margin. On a typical SME bill, non-commodity charges now make up 50-60% of the total.
Most online comparison pages only show you the headline unit rate. We model the full landed cost on your actual consumption profile so the cheapest quote on paper is also the cheapest on your next 24 months of invoices.
Fixed, flexible or pass-through, which contract fits your business?
Fixed contracts (12-48 months) lock both the wholesale and non-commodity components and give finance teams complete budget certainty, usually the right answer for single-site SMEs and most multi-site SMEs up to ~£250k spend.
Flexible contracts let you buy the wholesale element in tranches against the market curve, useful for larger users (>1 GWh) who want to manage exposure actively. Pass-through contracts fix the wholesale rate but pass non-commodity costs straight through at cost, which can suit consumers with predictable shape and good cash management.
Half-hourly metered sites and P272
If your site is profile class 05-08 or has a maximum demand above 100 kW, you'll be on half-hourly settlement. HH procurement opens up flex, basket and tranche-buying strategies that aren't available to non-HH supplies, and it makes capacity, availability and reactive charges material lines worth optimising.
We support HH renewals, settlement-class migration after P272/COP5, and ongoing bureau-style validation so you catch DUoS reclassifications, capacity over-runs and KVA mismatches before they hit the invoice.
When to renew and how green tariffs work
Three to six months before your contract end date is the sweet spot, long enough to tender properly, short enough that suppliers honour quotes for 30+ days. Leave it later and you'll be quoting into renewal pressure; leave it past your end date and you'll be on deemed/out-of-contract rates that can be 80-120% higher.
Green tariffs are backed by REGO certificates and are available from most major suppliers, often at a small premium or none at all depending on the contract length. We surface the REGO-backed options alongside standard quotes so you can compare both cost and Scope 2 impact.